


These Hands of Mine

by treaddelicately



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Slight mentions of PTSD, Smut, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, mentions of Hartley and Idaho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:13:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28035210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treaddelicately/pseuds/treaddelicately
Summary: When Hunter has a nightmare that lingers, Bobbi helps him chase it away.
Relationships: Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	These Hands of Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lazyfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/gifts).



> This was not supposed to be this angsty?? Al requested **peace** for Huntingbird from my holiday prompts, and this was the result. I'm still unsure if I need to say sorry or not.
> 
> Edited to add a thank you to @myracingthoughts, because she gave me a huge thumbs up on this when I doubted myself. Thanks boo!

Like hitting the ground after a free fall, Hunter woke in an insurmountable amount of pain.

He gasped in the darkness, sitting up in bed while awareness flooded all of his limbs. His brain was the last to catch up, to remind him that he was sleeping soundly next to his wife in a safe house and not trapped in another hell, but it didn’t make much of a difference. He’d already woken Bobbi.

She turned on her side and reached out for him, but he couldn’t. Instead, Hunter swung his legs over the side of the bed and made himself stand, feeling for all the world like a newborn giraffe as he made his way to the bathroom.

Bobbi didn’t give chase. She, more than anyone in the world, knew what it took on nights like this. He needed to follow the motions, to drink water straight from the bathroom tap and splash himself with it, to pull himself back out before the dream set in.

Face dripping with startlingly cold water, Hunter lifted his gaze to the mirror to assess the damage. Izzy stared back at him, one corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. His fingers gripping the edges of the sink as he slammed his eyes shut, willing the image away. In her place, Idaho materializes, his head thrown back in laughter.

He would never be rid of them, not really. 

Some days were easier than others. The monotony of work, the camaraderie of a team, Bob. The easiest time was when they’d had Polly and Robin to look after. Bloody infuriating, sometimes, sure, but it kept them busy. Kept his mind occupied during the day instead of racing ahead to the next mission, the next fight, the next nightmare. 

But Polly and Robin didn’t need them anymore and so it was just him and Bob, and all the ghosts that followed them around.

Two more splashes of water and Hunter’s hands were still shaking. He grabbed a towel to scrub his face dry and stumbled in the darkness back to bed, where Bobbi was sitting up with her knees drawn to her chest.

“C’mere,” she whispered. 

He scooted over and let her wrap her arms around him, a little awkwardly at first until they got settled with his head on her chest. After so long together he didn’t notice her distinct scent anymore, it was mostly just that she smelled like _them_. Hunter turned his face into the curtain of her hair and breathed in while Bobbi’s thumb stroked the short hairs at the back of his neck.

The barely-there touch was soothing, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing quite anchored him like being close to her in moments like this, and she seemed to get the hint because her palmed flattened around the back of his neck, pulling him in while they fumbled in the dark until their lips met in a bruising kiss.

There was no finesse, nothing gentle about it in the slightest. Hunter rolled and pinned Bobbi to the bed, sucking and biting at her bottom lip. Her thighs bracketed his hips, her body rocking up against his as their hands wandered together, working in tandem to pull the old t-shirt over her head. She stared up at him, her hair all splayed out on the pillows under her and her lips forming words that he couldn’t hear.

_Blood all over his hands, Izzy’s blood, she’s bleeding out and she doesn’t want to die, and it’s all his fault…_

He made a keening sound and covered her body with his, covering her throat with wet, sucking kisses. Bobbi’s pulse thrummed under his lips, steady and sure, and her hands clutched at his back like she could hold him in place if she tried hard enough.

_No chance to brace themselves, just endless flying, rolling, everything upside down and wrong…_

His kisses roughened and turned to bites, down to the swells of her breasts. Then there was nothing but soft skin and Bobbi’s noises in his ears, the peak of her perfect pink nipple in his mouth, the way she arched into him and moaned out his name. He could lose himself like this, in her. She’d let him without question.

_He’s leaving them behind, these people he trusted left crumpled and broken. His fault, all his fault…_

“Hunter.” 

_There’s still blood on his hands, it doesn’t matter how often he cleans them, it’s still there and he can’t get rid of it, he can’t get rid of them, and he doesn’t want to, because then he forgets and they’re worth remembering, they’re important—_

“Hunter!” 

The sharpness in Bobbi’s voice pierced through the haze of the memory, bringing him back to her bright eyes and the warmth of her legs around him. He lifted his head, surprised to find himself panting as though he’d been running. 

Bobbi took his chin in her hand so he couldn’t look away from her. “Come back,” she whispered. “I’m right here.”

Hunter heaved a shuddering breath, his forearm shaking from holding his weight for too long. When he spoke, his voice sounded rough and far-away to his own ears. “Sorry. I’m here.”

“It’s okay.” She flexed her thighs so they squeezed around his ribs, caging him in. “Take what you need. Just stay.”

The permission was enough. He leaned up and kissed her lips again, sweeter than before, lingering there before retracing the path he’d made down her chest. 

This time when he sucked on her nipple and pressed his fingertips into her side, the taste of her skin registered before anything else. A memory clung to the edges of his vision when he closed his eyes, but Hunter stubbornly pushed it away, focusing on the breathy sounds that Bobbi made when his teeth scraped over her sensitive skin.

Over and over, the dream slammed against his consciousness and tried to fight its way in. Fighting wasn’t working, so he let it happen. Each wave was a little less intense, though, and when they faded Bobbi was still waiting patiently for him. In fact, the more Hunter focused on her squirming body beneath him, the easier it became to get swept up in the current without feeling like he might drown.

When he eased Bobbi’s underwear down and kissed her inner thigh, nothing mattered besides the blissful sound of her sighing his name and her fingers twisting in his hair. She was plenty wet when he touched her, probably from all the relentless stop-and-go teasing he’d been doing.

“Fuck,” Bobbi gasped as he slid two fingers deep into her. He bit her thigh and she jerked beneath him. “Fuck, _please_.”

Any other day, he might have dragged it out. Chances to make her plead for him were few and far between and he liked to milk them for all they were worth, but she deserved this.

Hunter nudged her legs further apart and set about taking her apart, piece by piece, every way that he knew how. Her sounds were the easiest tell but he was more concerned with paying attention to the way she tensed when he flattened his tongue on her clit, when her thighs started to shake after he worked a third finger into her and twisted them to stroke her pulsing walls.

“That’s it, Bob,” he lifted his head to murmur to her. “C’mon, love, just like that, give it to me…”

Maybe she knew he needed to hear it, because she called his name again when she shattered. It echoed off the walls, letting him take it in again and again while he stroked her through the high until she was limp and flushed beneath him.

Hunter tried to be patient but the urgency was still tucked low behind his bellybutton, the desperate craving to get through the last of the dream that he couldn’t shake. And, well. Making Bobbi come for him never failed to make him hard as steel.

Bobbi made the choice for him, though, dragging him back up her body by his arms and pushing at his boxers until there was nothing left between them. Wordlessly, he nudged her onto her side and settled behind her to press a kiss to her bare shoulder. She helped things along by lifting her leg for him and arching her back, allowing him to slip into her wet heat with a quiet grunt.

It was a complicated position, and not one of their usual, but it kept him close to her, his hand curled around her thigh and his lips pressed between her shoulder blades. Bobbi exhaled with each of his thrusts and rocked to match his pace relentlessly. Everything in Hunter’s world narrowed then — nothing existed but her pussy wrapped around his cock, the slick that coated his fingers when he reached around to rub her clit, and Bobbi’s voice pleading in the dark for more, harder, _Hunter, fuck_.

Getting her over more than once so quickly was a feat, but he was determined. He had a purpose, his hands could do this, could make her whimper and cry for him instead of ruining things…

“Bobbi, please,” he growled helplessly. “Need to feel you.”

Her hand joined his, guiding him to the right rhythm on her clit, and a few moments later she stiffened against him, spasming around him in a way that had Hunter pounding into her for all he was worth. Bobbi had barely stilled when he wrapped his arm around her and clutched her tight, his hips stuttering as he emptied into her with a drawn-out moan into her shoulder.

Clean-up was a necessary evil, and Hunter reluctantly let her leave the bed to go to the bathroom and grab a glass of water, which they shared when she returned. Quietly, they re-assumed the position they’d been in when he’d still been shaking with the aftereffects of the nightmare, his head leaned on Bobbi’s chest with her arms wrapped around him so she could stroke his hair.

“You still with me?”

Words formed in his throat and lodged themselves there, resolute even when he tried to force them out. Few things rendered him speechless, and he never had a problem ruining a perfectly good mood by running his mouth, but Hunter couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Instead, he took Bobbi’s hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing each of her fingertips gently. That seemed to be an acceptable response because she rested her chin on his head and hummed an affirmation that she’d understood.

When he closed his eyes, he could still see. Izzy and Idaho and everyone else he’d ever lost lingered behind his lids like they always did, but that wasn’t all bad. It meant they were still there. The nightmares were a small price to pay to keep them with him, keep them alive somehow.

And with Bobbi at his side, her arms around him to keep him steady and bring him peace, he could handle that much.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can blame Al for this one. If you enjoyed, please feel free to leave a kudos or a comment to really make my day! xoxo


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